Hi friends! We got back late on Saturday night from a week in Sewickley, PA, outside of Pittsburgh, to spend some time with Matt’s parents and our friends who live in the area.
Matt’s dad loves cooking and he and I picked out some summery dinner recipes from my blog to enjoy while we were together. It was a delicious week!
First up: we enjoyed my old fave Salmon with Lemon Mustard Dill Sauce, which was a hit among everyone except for Wes. 😉 I’m obsessed with the sauce, which is made with a plain Greek yogurt and dijon mustard base – it’s so good I could legit eat it with a spoon.
Want to save this post?
Enter your email below and get it sent straight to your inbox. Plus, I’ll send you great content every week!
Glenn (Matt’s dad) decided to grill the salmon instead of roasting it and it came out great! Cedar planks FTW.
Another night we enjoyed my Watermelon Lime Grilled Chicken which is another old family favorite. Hadn’t made that in a long time and it was as good as I remembered! Plus some Oven Roasted Zucchini and Squash and asparagus and wild rice.
For the watermelon chicken recipe, you make a glaze by blending together watermelon, lime juice, balsamic vinegar, honey, cornstarch, and a little salt, then boil it down on the stove before brushing it onto the meat while it cooks. Any leftover glaze can be served as a dipping sauce once the meat is ready to eat!
We had some leftover watermelon chicken that I turned into a salad topping for a couple lunches. It was hot out so refreshing salads hit the spot. Yum, yum.
On Father’s Day for dinner we had grilled steaks and caesar salad, as requested by the men! Plus some potato and sautéed rainbow chard on the side. Delicious. Our starter was shrimp cocktail!
We had a lot of steak leftover so we ended up making my Steak and Strawberry Salad (with goat cheese and quinoa) to enjoy the next night. I love that recipe. We didn’t have enough strawberries on hand to make the strawberry vinaigrette, so we made a simple lemon balsamic dressing and that was great with it, too.
Lunches were mostly simple salads featuring leftover protein, but I did have a couple avocado tuna salad sandwiches as well. We had some yummy bread on hand that Matt’s parents picked up at the farmer’s market!
We also had a quiche one day for brunch that Matt’s mom, Doty, made which was delicious. Plus fruit, more of the good bread, and a side salad!
Matt and I made it into the city one night as well – his parents have monthly tickets to a magic show at a theater in downtown Pittsburgh and they offered to let us use this month’s tickets which was really kind of them!
We started with dinner at a spot called Alihan’s Mediterranean Cuisine in downtown Pittsburgh (around the corner from the theater). It was BYOB so we brought a bottle of Prosecco to enjoy, and shared some hummus and bread and a salad to start. My entree was a sautéed dish with shrimp and veggies and a lemon sauce. Everything was great!
After dinner we walked over to Liberty Magic, the intimate theater where the show was. We saw a magician/actor/comedian named Zabrecky perform and it was a lot of fun! Weird and hilarious and he had some really cool tricks that we could not figure out how he did them! Lots of pulling people out of the audience, too, which is always fun. Recommend checking out that theater if you’re ever in Pittsburgh.
We walked back to our parking garage via the waterfront to enjoy the sunset. There was a Pirates baseball game going on across the water so the stadium was all lit up and looking gorgeous, and I always love the bright yellow Pittsburgh bridges. They remind me of running the Pittsburgh half marathon (<- recap if you want to visit memory lane… I just had fun re-reading it!) way back in way back in 2014 with Matt and my brother!
Anyway! It was great to spend time with Matt’s parents and with our friends in the area (we had a fun big group pickleball battle + dinner night out mid-week) while we were there! Matt and his mom were working during the week, but his dad is retired so we spent a lot of time hanging out together with the kids. Grateful for his company! We had fun taking the kids on lots of adventures around town and in the city, too (the Pittsburgh Children’s museum was a hit!).
Matt had Juneteenth off and also took most of the Friday we were there off, so we spent those days at the pool with the kids. It was hot out so perfect timing for it! Riese LOVES the pool now and the two of us had a blast swimming around together.
One last adventure (that I got photos of) from Sewickley was a Juneteenth run date with Matt and our friend Tom! He took us on a steep route around town (I was definitely like yeahhhhh I’m gonna walk up this steep bit and meet y’all at the top) but the views were gorgeous. We ended the 3.5 mile run at our favorite coffee shop, Adesso Cafe. Shout out to the coffe shop’s owner, Frank, who reads the blog sometimes!
Thanks for a fun week, Sewickley! See you in August when we’re back for another visit. 🙂
Our other adventure lately was that on the way to Sewickley/Pittsburgh, we spent a few nights at the Omni hotel in Bedford Springs, PA, which was a great in-between DC and Pittsburgh location that broke up our drive.
There was hiking right on the property which was a great way to spend one of the mornings of our visit:
And we also rented bikes (and a bike trailer for the kids) from the hotel and took the kids on an adventure over to Old Bedford Village, which features preserved structures built during the 18th and 19th centuries. There were even historical interpreters demonstrating the trades and crafts of villagers.
Riese was really excited about all of it which was great because that meant Wes was excited, too (he basically does what she does). Fun times had by all!
And Matt got a serious leg workout tackling some hills on his bike with both kids in the trailer behind him! I was lucky to just be hauling myself. 😉
We also spent quite a bit of time at the hotel’s pool. Fun times had by all!
And now, we’re home from our two weeks of travel, the kids are in camp, and I’m getting caught up. Have a great week, friends! I’ll be back with some 4th of July recipe inspiration for you on Friday.
